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Quilts To Cultivate Cultural Exchange

A handmade, American crazy quilt depicting Palatine landmarks will be displayed at a quilt show Saturday before heading to its new home: the village's sister city in France.

Nine local women spent roughly 100 hours stitching 12-by12-inch fabric swatches into the quilt, which will be a gift for the people of Fontenay Le Comte.

"It's very elegant-looking," said Paula Tironi, one of the organizers of the show. "It has rich jewel tones of emerald green, ruby red and sapphire blue."

Besides the Palatine quilt more than 30 crazy, patchwork and scrap quilts will be on display at the show, which runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Winston Campus School, 900 E. Palatine Rd., Palatine. Admission is $2.

The highlight of the show will be at noon, when women from both countries exchange quilts to commemorate the six-year sister-city relationship.

The Palatine quilt has depictions of the Historic Clayson House Museum and the Towne Square gazebo. Each swatch reflects each quilter's personality, said Margaret Duer, president of the Sister Cities Association of Palatine. Some of the women incorporated fabrics from dresses or other things they owned.

"There's a snowflake [in the quilt] because our winters are colder than theirs," Tironi said. "There's a white-tailed deer, which is the state animal. And in the center of five blocks, there's a painting transfer by artist Rolley Bateman III of the gazebo."

The group from France is giving Palatine a quilt that depicts a painting by artist Jean Chevolleau. It shows the French countryside near Fontenay and is a duplicate of a painting that hangs in Palatine's Village Hall.